Another British summertime is upon us which means we can look forward to a season filled with sports, festivals and if we’re lucky, maybe even some sunshine. It’s an ideal time for marketers to target consumers with engaging brand activations, but it is vital that care is taken to ensure these activities are conducted responsibly. Avoid a blunder with our hat trick of top tips.
Competitions for the off-trade
Many alcohol brands choose to engage with their customers by running promotions where the public have the chance to win tickets to an activity – like a sporting event, festival or even a holiday. While off-trade drinks are designed to be taken home to consume, care must still be taken that the mechanism for participating doesn’t inadvertently encourage immoderate consumption.
For example, if a brand is running a promotion or competition then a consumer may purchase several bottles or cans of a drink in order to maximise their chance of winning. Now, providing the drink has a reasonable shelf life, this would not necessarily be an issue under the Code because the consumer can then choose to drink the products at their leisure over a longer period of time. However, if the promotion or competition requires a drink to be opened in order to enter the competition (for example to get a unique entry number on the lid of the drink), and there was no limit to the amount of times a consumer could enter the competition, then a person could open and therefore potentially consume multiple drinks in order to maximize their chance of winning.
The competition would then become the catalyst for them drinking more alcohol, so the Advisory Service would suggest that the entry mechanic should not require the drink to be opened or that a limit is placed on the amount of times someone could enter per week.
On-trade promotions
Unlike the off-trade, promotions in the on-trade usually involve a consumer drinking at the point of purchase. For that reason, producers need to take extra care that they are not encouraging a person to drink immoderately or irresponsibly. The Advisory Service recommends that a person should not be encouraged to drink more than four units of alcohol in one sitting and should not drink more than 14 units of alcohol in a week in line with the Chief Medical Officer’s’ low risk drinking guidelines.
It can be tricky to run a promotion or competition in the on-trade, but it is the view of the Advisory Service that this sort of marketing can still be done in a socially responsible manner. We would recommend that if a producer is running a competition to win a prize, where purchase of a drink is required for entry, then entries should be capped at a limited number per consumer.
For example, if entry to a competition required the purchase of a drink which contained 1.5 units of alcohol, we’d suggest capping the number of times a consumer could enter at two drinks (three units of alcohol). This would help to avoid indirectly encouraging immoderate consumption.
Experiential Marketing
Lots of people will be out and about over the summer and for a lot of producers, promotional events or experiential marketing will be on the cards. However, one of the biggest concerns we see in the Advisory Service is this sort of marketing potentially having a particular appeal to under-18s.
While a lot of summer events are family friendly, even events which are restricted to over-18s should ensure that marketing does not have a particular appeal to under-18s. The test of this Code rule is not one of quantity but the way in which something appeals. It is important to remember that the Code applies to experiential marketing and so including items or themes as part of the experience which could have a particular appeal to under-18s is unlikely to be acceptable.
It is hard to say if any one element is likely to cause an experience to have a particular appeal to under-18s, but producers can reduce this risk by including elements which are likely to have a more adult appeal. Games such as tag, swing ball, water fights or slip and slides are all more likely to resonate with children than they are adults so we would suggest avoiding them. Instead, activities which are more adult focused like darts, badminton or tennis are likely to be okay as these are likely to have broad appeal to all age groups.
Similarly, incorporating items or themes which do not have a particular appeal to under-18s is also really important. For instance, balloon animals, teddies or clowns are all likely to have a particular appeal to children and should be avoided.
There are a lot of elements to consider but whatever your marketing plans are for the summer, the Advisory Service is here to help. Our full guidance can be found online here or you can contact us for a free, confidential and non-binding view at advice@portmangroup.org.uk.
